iMac powers on, but no chime...

[munckee]

I don't have the machine in front of me, but a friend is having issues with his C2D iMac. Powers on, but doesn't even chime to load the OS. Any thoughts on what this might be before it goes into the store? Seems like it might just be a bad HD, but I'm not sure.

 

[SaSaSushi]

I don't have the machine in front of me, but a friend is having issues with his C2D iMac. Powers on, but doesn't even chime to load the OS. Any thoughts on what this might be before it goes into the store? Seems like it might just be a bad HD, but I'm not sure.

Does the screen light up and just stay grey with no chime or is it dark? Do you hear the fans? If you suspect the HD boot up with the Tiger/Leopard DVD. (hold C) at startup.

I would not automatically assume that was the issue if it does not even get to the chime. I think that chime sounds immediately upon power up and before the HDs are even accessed. It may be a bad power supply or logic board issue.

See if it can boot to the DVD and if not I would guess you're looking at sending it in to Apple.

 

[Zwhaler]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/523.15.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0.4 Safari/523.15)

I know this may sound stupid, but does your friend have his computer muted and that is why there is no sound?

 

[Sun Baked]

The machine will likely still bong with a bad HD, I don't think it needs to load anything off the drive for that.

Cannot remember the boot sequence with the new machine, but no bong may be a failed logic board.

Looking at the service manual diagnosis tree would help, and i don't have one.

---

Or a dead, PSU.

 

[munckee]

Thanks guys. Like I said, I don't have the machine in front of me so I don't have much info. I'll have to see if I can get more. Or just send him to the store and be done. We were just hoping if it was something simple not to have to mess with sending it it.

 

[JNB]

The chime is the POST result, much like the beep on PC's. Is can be muted if system sounds are muted at the prior shutdown.

If it's not muted, and there is no chime at startup, it's more likely to be logic board-related. I don't think that even bad RAM would prevent completing POST, but if RAM has been added to that iMac, try pulling out one stick at a time, or swapping for known good if available. Otherwise, just take it in.

 

[jaredisme]

I wish mine wouldnt chime. It pisses me off every time I turn on the computer and at full volume on the crappy internal speaker it makes an obnoxious noise.

 

[SaSaSushi]

I wish mine wouldnt chime. It pisses me off every time I turn on the computer and at full volume on the crappy internal speaker it makes an obnoxious noise.

There are utilities to mute the startup chime. Search on MacUpdate.

 

[kflook]

I wish mine wouldnt chime. It pisses me off every time I turn on the computer and at full volume on the crappy internal speaker it makes an obnoxious noise.

Just curious, is there a reason some machines chime from the built in speakers and some from external ones? My PowerBook chimes from the external ones when I have them plugged in, but my grandmother's Mac mini chimes from the internal one, though everything else plays through the external ones she uses?